Night Vale ▷ Steve Harrington

xiv. merry meet again

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐅𝐄𝐖 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐑. To his credit, he had tried to study, but each time was a failed effort that only resulted in Scout wanting to throw his notes across the room, never to look at them again. In the end, he made amends with the fact that he was never going to remember everything, much less in time. School had never exactly been his strong suit, but there was too much on his mind to try and squeeze in things like math or chemistry. Now, the only thing keeping him from spontaneously combusting was his drum set, which he had been pounding on nonstop for the past hour. 

His grip upon the drumsticks in his hands loosened. He laid them both on his lap and wiped his sweaty palms on the sides of his jeans, but to no avail; the perspiration he had just rubbed off reappeared almost instantaneously. Slightly out of breath, Scout gave himself a break, his ears ringing from the bombardment of sounds he was inflicting upon himself. The basement may have been soundproof, but he certainly wasn’t, and it took more than a few moments to gather himself, waiting for his hearing to fully come back. 

His attention turned to the cut on his cheek. Stinging, it forced his fingers to hover over the gash oh-so-gently, wincing when his skin made contact. It had been put there only a few hours prior by a stranger with a knife, the glint of silver slashing toward him as he did his best to sidestep out of the way. He didn’t know it at the time, but that small reflexive movement had probably saved his eye, the knife instead slicing mere inches below its intended target. 

He’d been alone, and therefore a much easier target. The headlock he’d found himself in hurt more than he cared to admit, his breaths coming and going in gasping gulps as he tried to kick and punch whoever was holding him down. He couldn’t remember how long the altercation lasted, only the final kick and the sound of an iron bar falling to the concrete. Apart from the cut, his face wasn’t too bad, if you didn’t count the messy nosebleed he’d gotten when they grabbed him. He’d thrown his clothes off the second he’d gotten home -- replaced them with a cleaner sweatshirt and pants that didn’t have any traces of his blood, unlike the ones from before. When he’d changed, though, Scout’s eyes fell upon the blooming purple patch on his abdomen, yellow blotches dotting the edges that remind him of what an alien cartoon might look like. The bruise pulsed when he breathed, so he tried to do that as little as possible, except it turned out you kind of needed to do that pretty frequently to survive. 

So far, the only thing keeping him from rushing off somewhere was the wave of bliss he felt wash over him when he played the drums, ignoring the pulsating pain his injuries emitted until it became too much to raise his arms. He remembered the panting gasps his lungs tried to muster as the frigid air around him became thick and difficult to draw in, the blurred faces of his attackers swimming before him as he tried to curl into a ball to protect himself. But what he didn't remember were sirens, or the flash of reds and blues that must have followed, because all of a sudden, the three strangers looked at each other and bolted, leaving Scout on the ground to wonder what the hell had just happened, and why. 

He couldn’t remember them, Because they didn’t exist.  

His bike had thankfully landed not too far away, and as soon he could gather his senses, Scout took off in the opposite direction. He’d nearly crashed more than once, even managing to nearly run into somebody a few meters away before gasping out an apology and rushing away as fast as his injuries permitted. Tears dried and knuckles bruised, Scout now had even more to think about, as if everything else hadn’t been enough. 

The blond was just about to begin another pounding session when something flickers in the corner of his eye. Scout turned his head in the direction he thought he’d seen it in a confused manner -- almost curious, if he’d been in the mood. Something flickers again, this time on the other side, and he twisted until he faced the wall of the basement, completely devoid of any change. He was certain it wasn’t the light -- his dad had replaced the bulb two weeks ago. The only thing he did get a glimpse of was what could only be described as a shadow, hovering only meters in front of him, gone before he could blink.